How to make a simple spiral w/ arrow like the Weatherman
None of the suggestions already on StackExchange specifically addressed what I wanted to do. Here's what I finally came up with:

my weatherman-type rendered spiral http://s1.postimg.org/hewpl3ym5/rendered_spiral.jpg

I created a spiral; in Geometry, I used a custom bevel and taper. I assigned it a material. I used hemi light in Blender Render. (So no shadow where one part of the ribbon crosses the other.) I added a 3 point mesh triangle for the arrow and made that a child of the spiral so that it would rotate with the spiral during animation. I added a black border in BR post processing. (Whew! Took 3 days with lots of reading and watching youtube tutorials.)